Editing Lady Caroline Lamb (section)

==Relationship with Lord Byron==
From March to August 1812, Lady Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with [[Lord Byron]]. He was 24, and she was 26. She spurned his attention on their first meeting, which was at a society event at [[Holland House]]. According to the memoirs of her friend [[Sydney, Lady Morgan]], Lady Caroline claimed she coined the phrase "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" soon after she had met the poet. It became his lasting epitaph, but there is no contemporary evidence to prove that she coined the famous phrase at the time.<ref name="Douglassbio" /> She wrote him a [[fan letter]]. His response was to visit her because of her high social status and then to pursue her passionately.<ref name="timesonline">{{cite news|url=http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article830128.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2|title=Ireland: Poetic justice at home of Byron's exiled lover|last=Sunday Times: Property|date=17 November 2002|quote= 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know' has become Lord Byron's lasting epitaph|work=The Times|access-date=21 February 2010|location=Dublin}}{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref name="nytimes">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/13/reviews/970413.13castlet.html|title=Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know|last1=Castle|first1=Terry|last2=Grosskurth|first2=Phyllis|date=13 April 1997|quote=A biography that sees Lord Byron as a victim of circumstances|work=The New York Times|access-date=21 February 2010|location=New York}}</ref>
[[File:Byron 1813 by Phillips.jpg|thumb|''[[Portrait of Lord Byron]]'' in 1814, by [[Thomas Phillips]]]]
Lady Caroline and Lord Byron publicly decried each other as they privately pledged their love over the following months.<ref name="timesonline" /><ref name="scribblingwomen">{{cite book|last=Millstein|first=Denise Tischler|title=Byron and 'Scribbling Women': Lady Caroline Lamb, The Brontë Sisters, and George Eliot (A Dissertation)|publisher=Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Department of English|location=Shreveport|date=May 2007}}</ref> Byron referred to Lamb as "Caro", which she adopted as her public nickname.<ref name="Duncan. 1995">Wu, Duncan. "Appropriating Byron: Lady Caroline Lamb’s A New Canto". Wordsworth Circle. 26.3 (1995): 140–46.</ref> After Byron ended the affair, her husband took Lady Caroline to Ireland. The distance did not cool Lady Caroline's interest in the poet, and she and Byron corresponded constantly during her exile.<ref name="timesonline" /> When Lady Caroline returned to London in 1813, however, Byron made it clear that he had no intention of restarting their relationship. That spurred increasingly-public attempts to reunite with her former lover.<ref name="nytimes" /> Matters came to a head at a ball in honour of the [[Duke of Wellington]] when Byron publicly insulted Lady Caroline, who responded by breaking a wine glass and trying to slash her wrists.<ref>Paul Douglas (2004) Lady Caroline Lamb (Macmillan) pp. 152–153</ref> She did not seriously injure herself, and it is most unlikely that she had any suicidal intentions, but her reputation was damaged and her mental stability was questioned. Byron himself referred to it as a theatrical performance: "Lady Caroline performed the dagger scene" (a reference to ''[[Macbeth]]'').

Lady Caroline's obsession with Byron would define much of her later life, as well as influencing both her and Byron's works. They would write poems in the style of each other about each other and even embed overt messages to one another in their verse.<ref name="scribblingwomen" /> After a thwarted visit to Byron's home, Lady Caroline wrote "Remember Me!" into the flyleaf of one of Byron's books. He responded with the hate poem: "Remember thee! Remember thee!; Till [[Lethe]] quench life's burning stream; Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream! Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not. Thy husband too shall think of thee! By neither shalt thou be forgot, Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!"<ref name="Duncan. 1995"/>

Her cousin Harriet (now [[Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville|Lady Granville]]) with whom Lady Caroline's relationship had deteriorated after childhood, visited her in December 1816 and was so incredulous at her unrepentant behaviour that she ended her description of the visit in a letter to her sister, "I mean my visits to be annual".<ref name=Granville>Leveson-Gower, F. (Ed.), ''Letters of Harriet Countess Granville 1810–1845'', London:  Longmans, Green, and Co. (1894).</ref>